Cannabis plant named &#39;V2&#39;

ABSTRACT

The new cannabis plant variety ‘V2’ is provided. ‘V2’ is intended for use as medicinal herb for sale in cannabis dispensaries for use in the manufacture of medicinal and recreational products. The variety can be distinguished by its outstanding features of increased production of tetrahydrocannabivarin and production of the unique terpene, farnesene.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No.62/832,859 filed on Apr. 11, 2019, which is incorporated herein byreference in its entirety as though fully set forth herein.

Latin name of the genus and species: Genus—Cannabis. Species—sativa.

Variety denomination: The new Cannabis plant claimed is of the varietydenominated ‘V2’.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to a new and distinct annual variety of C.sativa, which has been given the variety denomination of ‘V2’. Itsmarket class is that of a medicinal herb. ‘V2 is intended for use asmedicinal herb containing tetrahydrocannabinol (THC),tetrahydrocannabivarin (THCV), and terpenes including farnesene. ‘V2’ isintended for use as a medicinal herb for sale in Cannabis dispensariesand as a home garden plant.

The new C. sativa cultivar is a selection resulting from initial geneticselection of C. sativa strains from Durban, South Africa and Malawi,Morocco to cultivate that had the potential for higher production ofTHCV. Plants were initially bred within greenhouses at Mendo Love Farmsin Laytonville, Calif. before being acclimatized to outdoor conditions.After acclimatization, vegetative C. sativa plants were tested for THCVlevels using chromatography. The highest THCV producing male and femaleplants were selected for breeding. The female parent PA-F 11 (P20) (notpatented) of THC content 0.55% and THCV content 1.27% was cross bred toC. sativa male parent M32 (P20) (not patented) of THC content 6.14% andTHCV content 1.24% to generate the F1 progeny. Cannabinoid production ofthe F1 progeny was measured beginning in 2016 and used to determinesingle plants to propagate. The new cultivar was discovered and selectedas a single plant within a population resulting C. sativa plants fromthis controlled pollination in 2016 selected at Mendo Love Farms,Laytonville, Calif., U.S.A. Selection criteria included enhanced THCVproduction relative to THC production.

PROPAGATION The selection was subsequently evaluated for 3 years atMendo Love Farms, Laytonville, Calif., U.S.A. Individual plants areinitially propagated within a greenhouse without supplemental lighting.Plants are transferred to outdoor growth once established.

Asexual reproduction of the new cultivar by cutting propagation since2018 at Mendo Love Farm, Laytonville, Calif., U.S.A. has demonstratedthat the new cultivar reproduces true to type with all thecharacteristics, as herein described, firmly fixed and retained throughsuccessive generations of such asexual propagation.

HISTORICAL NOTE

Human cultivation history of Cannabis dates back 8000 years (Schultes,R. E. 1970. Random thoughts and queries on the botany of Cannabis. Pages11-38 in: C R B Joyce, and S H Curry eds., THE BOTANY AND CHEMISTRY OFCANNABIS. J. & A. Churchill. London, England (1970)). Hemp clothrecovered in Europe dates back 6000 years (Small, F., Beckstead, H D.,and Chan, A. 29(3) ECONOMIC BOTANY 219-232. (1975)). The written recordof the pharmacologic properties of Cannabis goes back more than 4000years (Ti, H. 2737BCE.Nei Jing Su Wen Huang Ti (Yellow Emporer's Classicon Internal Medicine; referred to without citation in Small, et al.(1975) Supra).

The taxonomy and nomenclature of the highly variable genus Cannabis(Emboden, W A., 29(3) ECONOMIC BOTANY 304-310. (1974)) (Small, E. andCronquist, A. 25(4) TAXON 405-435 (1976)) (Small, E. and Cronquist, A.26(1) TAXON 110 (1977)); (Hillig, K W and Mahlberg, P G, 91(6) AmericanJournal of Botany 966-975 (2004)), remains in question. This is in spiteof the fact that its formal scientific name, ‘Cannabis sativa L.’,assigned by Carolus Linneaus (Linneaus, C, 2 SPECIES PLANTARIUM 1027(1753), Salvius, Stockholm. Fascimile edition, 1957-1959. Ray Society,London, U.K.) is one of the oldest established names in botanicalhistory and is still excepted to this day. Another species in the genus,‘Cannabis indica Lam.’ Was formally named somewhat later (de Lamarck, JB, 1(2) ENCYLOPEDIE METHODIQUE DE BOTANIQUE, 694-5, (1785)), but isstill very old in botanical history.

Three other species names were proposed in the 1800s to distinguishplants with presumably different characteristics (C. macrosperma Stokes,C. chinensis Delile, C. giganteam Vilmorin), none of which are acceptedtoday, although the epithet “indica” lives on as a subspecies of C.sativa (‘C. sativa ssp. indica Lam.;, Small and Cronquist 1976 Supra).

In the 20^(th) century, two new names were added to the liturgy ofproposed ‘Cannabis species: C. ruderalis’ Janischevsky and a hybrid x‘C. interstita’ Sojak. (Small, E, Jui, P Y, and Lefkovitch, L P, 1(1)SYSTEMATIC BOTANY 67-84 (1976)); Small and Cronquist 1976, Supra).Further, numerous names have been proposed for horticultural variants of‘Cannabis’ but as of 1976, “very few of these have been validlypublished as formal taxa under the International Code of BotanicalNomenclature.” (Small and Cronquist, 1976 Supra). Moreover, other recentwork continues to focus on higher-order evolutionary relationships ofthe genus. Cannabis has been variously ascribed as belonging to themulberry family (Moraceae) (Engler, H G A, Ulmaceae, Moraceae andUrticaceae, pages 59-118 (1889) in: A. Engler and K. Prantl eds., DIENATURLICHEN PFLANZENFAMILIEN 3(1). W. Engelmann, Leipzeig, Germany;Judd, W S, Sanders, R W, and Donogue, M J, 5 HARVARD PAPERS IN BOTANY 5:1-51 (1994)); nettle family (Urticaceae) (Berg, C C, Systematics andphylogeny of the Urticales, pages 193-220, in: P. R. Crane and S.Blackmore eds., EVOLUTION, SYSTEMATIC, AND FOSSIL HISTORY OF THEHAMAMELIDAE, VOL 2, HIGHER HAMAMELIDAE, Clarendon Press, Oxford, U.K.(1989); Humphries, C J and Blackmore, S. A review of the classificationof the Moraceae, pages 267-277 In: Crane and Blackmore 1989 id.); andmost recently in its own family with hops (Humulus), the Cannabaceae, orhemp family (Sytsma, K J m et al. 89(9) AMERICAN JOURNAL OF BOTANY1531-1546 (2002)). While the work of Small and Cronquist 1976 Supra,seemed to effectively confine the genus to a single species with 2subspecies (C. sativa. s., C. s. indica), each with two varieties (C.s.svar sativa, C.s.s. var spontanea; C.s.i. var. indica, C.s.i. var.Karfiristanica) largely on the basis of chemotaxonomy and interfertilityof all forms, more recent work (System, et al. 2002, Supra), proposes atwo-species concept, resurrecting the binomial C. indica Lam. SinceSystema, et al. 2002 provides no key for discriminating between thespecies, the dichotomous key of Small and Cronquist 1976 Supra, whichaccounts for all forms in nature, whether wild or domesticated, was usedto classify the characteristics of the plants described herein.

The active ingredients in Cannabis are cannabinoids and include THC,THCV. Cannabinoids are of interest for their effects on the body throughthe endogenous cannabinoid system that is an integral part of thecentral nervous system.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The aim for the development of the new C. sativa hybrid cultivar, ‘V2’,was to produce a strain featuring increased THCV levels relative to THClevels. These phytocannabinoids in Cannabis are known for their abilityto signal through the human endocannabinoid system. THC is found in theform of tetrahydrocannabolic acid (THCA) that is converted to THC duringdrying or under high heat. Similarly, THCV in live plants is in the formof tetrahydrocannivarin carboxylic acid (THCVA). THC and THCV both bindto the cannabinoid receptors 1 (CB1) and 2 (CB2) although the exacteffects of binding are not fully understood. Binding of CB₁ by itsendogenous ligands, anandamide or 2-arachidonoylglycerol, stimulatesfood intake (Silvestri, C., Di Marzo, V. 17 Cell Metabolism 475-490(2013)). THC acts as an agonist of CB₁ and stimulates appetite. THCV hasbeen shown to be a mild antagonist of CB₁ and lessens sensations ofhunger (Pertwee, R G. 153 British Journal of Pharmacology 199-215(2008)). The ability of THCV to act as an antagonist of CB₁ has led toinvestigation of using THCV to treat metabolic syndrome and obesity(Riedel, G., et al., 156 British Journal of Pharmacology 1154-1166(2009)). Selection of a strain producing increased amounts of THCVallows optimized isolation of THCV which may be used in treatment ofmetabolic syndrome.

Plants of the new cultivar differ from typical C. sativa plants inincreased production of THCV compared to THC as determined bycannabinoid testing performed by Pure Analytics. C. sativa strain ‘V2’demonstrates elevated THCVA levels of 3.76% in tested flowers comparedto a range of 0.12% for a high THC producing C. sativa strain (Table 1).C. sativa strain ‘V2’ is a new cultivar with increased production ofTHCV compared to standard strains of C. sativa. C. sativa strain ‘V2’has elevated levels of the unique terpene, farnesene (0.23%), asdetermined by terpene testing performed by Pure Analytics. Farnesene isnot normally observed in C. sativa strains and this may be a uniqueidentifier of the ‘V2’ strain. The enhanced production of THCV makes‘V2’ a strain of interest for production of medicinal THCV.

TABLE 1 Strain THC (%) THCV (%) Farnesene (%) V2 3.87 3.76 0.23 WW322.87 0.12 N/A

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF PICTURES

The accompanying photographs show the typical appearance of the newvariety ‘V2’. The colors are as nearly true as is reasonably possible ina color representation of this type. Colors in the photographs maydiffer slightly from the color values cited in the detailed botanicaldescription which accurately describes the colors of the new plant.

FIG. 1. a photograph of the new variety ‘V2’ at about age 16 weeks inits vegetative stage at Mendo Love Farms, Laytonville, Calif., U.S.A.The photograph was taken in July 2018 and demonstrates the difference inthe leaf structure compared to other cultivars, next to ‘V2’.

FIG. 2. is a photograph of the new variety ‘V2’ at about age 16 weeks inits vegetative stage at Mendo Love Farms, Laytonville, Calif., U.S.A. ina 45-gallon pot. The photograph was taken in July 2018 and demonstratesthe narrow leaf structure.

FIG. 3 is a photograph of the new variety ‘V2’ at about age 28-30 weeksin its flowering stage at Mendo Love Farms, Laytonville, Calif., U.S.A.The photograph was taken in October 2018 and demonstrates flowering of‘V2’ with small bud structure.

FIG. 4 is a photograph of the new variety ‘V2’ at about age 38 weeks inits flowering stage at Mendo Love Farms, Laytonville, Calif., U.S.A. Thephotograph was taken in December 2018 with cover to protect from rainand straw to keep roots warm, the bud structure is much bigger, and theTHCV levels lower than early November.

DETAILED BOTANICAL DESCRIPTION

The following detailed description sets forth the distinctivecharacteristics of C. sativa ‘V2’. Applicant is prepared to make adeposit of seeds or plant tissue in the event that claims are submittedreciting such a deposit of seeds or plant tissue.

Type: Herbaceous tap-rooted annual

Classification: Cultivars of ‘Cannabis sativa’, possessing traits of thesubspecies, ‘C. sativa sativa. When navigating the key of Small andCronquist, I D., the first couplet separates individuals based on theirability to intoxicate. This cultivated line possesses intoxicatingproperties, and so the subspecies sativa and its varieties (var. sativaand spontanea) are eliminated from consideration. Within the nextcouplet distinguishing within the subspecies indica, fruits are requiredto separate between the varieties (var. indica and var kafiristanica).No fruits were found on any of the individuals observed, and sodiscrimination between the varieties is impossible with this key.

-   -   a. Family—Cannabaceae.    -   b. Genus—Cannabis.    -   c. Species—sativa.    -   d. Common Name—Marijuana

Market Class: A medicinal herb intended for use as medical oil, andmedicinal herb for sale in Cannabis dispensaries and as a home gardenplant.

PLANT

General:

-   -   a. Origin—Whole plant    -   b. Parentage—Female Parent—F12(P20)    -   c. Male Parent—M31(P20)

COMPARISON BETWEEN PARENTAL AND COMMERCIAL CULTIVARS

The new C. sativa cultivar ‘V2’ differs from the parental cultivars,female F12(P20) and male M31(P20), by having an increased production ofTHCV. THCV levels in ‘V2’ are at a range of 3.67% compared to a range of1.27% for the female parent and a range of 1.24% for the male parent.

NOTE

Applicant is prepared to submit a seed and/or tissue deposit of thecultivar herein described, prior to issuance or publication, as requiredby the law of the relevant jurisdiction, as needed to support claimsreciting such a deposit.

1. A new and distinct variety of Cannabis plant named ‘V2’,substantially as illustrated and described herein.